The Daily Audio Bible

The End of the Flood

8 God had not forgotten Noah and all the animals with him in the boat; he caused a wind to blow, and the water started going down. ² The outlets of the water beneath the earth and the floodgates of the sky were closed. The rain stopped, ³ and the water gradually went down for 150 days. ⁴ On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the boat came to rest on a mountain in the Ararat range. ⁵ The water kept going down, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains appeared.

⁶ After forty days Noah opened a window ⁷ and sent out a raven. It did not come back, but kept flying around until the water was completely gone. ⁸ Meanwhile, Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone down, ⁹ but since the water still covered all the land, the dove did not find a place to light. It flew back to the boat, and Noah reached out and took it in. ¹⁰ He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again. ¹¹ It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down. ¹² Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back.

¹³ When Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked around, and saw that the ground was getting dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

¹⁵ God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives. ¹⁷ Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth.” ¹⁸ So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives. ¹⁹ All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.

Noah Offers a Sacrifice

²⁰ Noah built an altar to the Lord; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burned them whole as a sacrifice on the altar. ²¹ The odor of the sacrifice pleased the Lord, and he said to himself, “Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what people do; I know that from the time they are young their thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time. ²² As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”

God's Covenant with Noah

9 ^(A)God blessed Noah and his sons and said, “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth. ² All the animals, birds, and fish will live in fear of you. They are all placed under your power. ³ Now you can eat them, as well as green plants; I give them all to you for food. ^4 (B)The one thing you must not eat is meat with blood still in it; I forbid this because the life is in the blood. ⁵ If anyone takes human life, he will be punished. I will punish with death any animal that takes a human life. ^6 (C)Human beings were made like God, so whoever murders one of them will be killed by someone else.

^7 (D)“You must have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth.”

⁸ God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ “I am now making my covenant with you and with your descendants, ¹⁰ and with all living beings—all birds and all animals—everything that came out of the boat with you. ¹¹ With these words I make my covenant with you: I promise that never again will all living beings be destroyed by a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth. ¹² As a sign of this everlasting covenant which I am making with you and with all living beings, ¹³ I am putting my bow in the clouds. It will be the sign of my covenant with the world. ¹⁴ Whenever I cover the sky with clouds and the rainbow appears, ¹⁵ I will remember my promise to you and to all the animals that a flood will never again destroy all living beings. ¹⁶ When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living beings on earth. ¹⁷ That is the sign of the promise which I am making to all living beings.”

Noah and His Sons

¹⁸ The sons of Noah who went out of the boat were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹ These three sons of Noah were the ancestors of all the people on earth.

²⁰ Noah, who was a farmer, was the first man to plant a vineyard. ²¹ After he drank some of the wine, he became drunk, took off his clothes, and lay naked in his tent. ²² When Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked, he went out and told his two brothers. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it behind them on their shoulders. They walked backward into the tent and covered their father, keeping their faces turned away so as not to see him naked. ²⁴ When Noah sobered up and learned what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,

²⁸ After the flood Noah lived 350 years ²⁹ and died at the age of 950.

The Descendants of Noah's Sons^(E)

10 These are the descendants of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These three had sons after the flood.

² The sons of Japheth—Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ³ The descendants of Gomer were the people of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. ⁴ The descendants of Javan were the people of Elishah, Spain, Cyprus, and Rhodes; ⁵ they were the ancestors of the people who live along the coast and on the islands. These are the descendants of Japheth, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.

⁶ The sons of Ham—Cush, Egypt, Libya, and Canaan—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ⁷ The descendants of Cush were the people of Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The descendants of Raamah were the people of Sheba and Dedan. ⁸ Cush had a son named Nimrod, who became the world's first great conqueror. ⁹ By the Lord's help he was a great hunter, and that is why people say, “May the Lord make you as great a hunter as Nimrod!” ¹⁰ At first his kingdom included Babylon, Erech, and Accad, all three of them in Babylonia. ¹¹ From that land he went to Assyria and built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, ¹² and Resen, which is between Nineveh and the great city of Calah.

¹³ The descendants of Egypt were the people of Lydia, Anam, Lehab, Naphtuh, ¹⁴ Pathrus, Casluh, and of Crete, from whom the Philistines are descended.^[b]

¹⁵ Canaan's sons—Sidon, the oldest, and Heth—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ¹⁶ Canaan was also the ancestor of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷ the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸ the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. The different tribes of the Canaanites spread out, ¹⁹ until the Canaanite borders reached from Sidon southward to Gerar near Gaza, and eastward to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim near Lasha. ²⁰ These are the descendants of Ham, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.

²¹ Shem, the older brother of Japheth, was the ancestor of all the Hebrews. ²² Shem's sons—Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ²³ The descendants of Aram were the people of Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshek. ²⁴ Arpachshad was the father of Shelah, who was the father of Eber. ²⁵ Eber had two sons: one was named Peleg,^[c] because during his time the people of the world were divided; and the other was named Joktan. ²⁶ The descendants of Joktan were the people of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷ Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸ Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹ Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All of them were descended from Joktan. ³⁰ The land in which they lived extended from Mesha to Sephar in the eastern hill country. ³¹ These are the descendants of Shem, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.

³² All these peoples are the descendants of Noah, nation by nation, according to their different lines of descent. After the flood all the nations of the earth were descended from the sons of Noah.

Jesus Begins His Work in Galilee^(A)

^12 (B)When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he went away to Galilee. ^13 (C)He did not stay in Nazareth, but went to live in Capernaum, a town by Lake Galilee, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. ¹⁴ This was done to make come true what the prophet Isaiah had said,

^17 (E)From that time Jesus began to preach his message: “Turn away from your sins, because the Kingdom of heaven is near!”

Jesus Calls Four Fishermen^(F)

¹⁸ As Jesus walked along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw two brothers who were fishermen, Simon (called Peter) and his brother Andrew, catching fish in the lake with a net. ¹⁹ Jesus said to them, “Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people.” ²⁰ At once they left their nets and went with him.

²¹ He went on and saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in their boat with their father Zebedee, getting their nets ready. Jesus called them, ²² and at once they left the boat and their father, and went with him.

Jesus Teaches, Preaches, and Heals^(G)

^23 (H)Jesus went all over Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Good News about the Kingdom, and healing people who had all kinds of disease and sickness. ²⁴ The news about him spread through the whole country of Syria, so that people brought to him all those who were sick, suffering from all kinds of diseases and disorders: people with demons, and epileptics, and paralytics—and Jesus healed them all. ²⁵ Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Ten Towns, from Jerusalem, Judea, and the land on the other side of the Jordan.

Evening Prayer for Help^[a]

Wisdom Calls

^20 (A)Listen! Wisdom is calling out in the streets and marketplaces, ²¹ calling loudly at the city gates and wherever people come together:

²² “Foolish people! How long do you want to be foolish? How long will you enjoy making fun of knowledge? Will you never learn? ²³ Listen when I reprimand you; I will give you good advice and share my knowledge with you.